Hotel Vesuvio (Benevento)

In Naples ’44

Appears in 4 diary entries.

1. August 18 1944
   Lewis settles into a stripped-down, damaged hotel in Benevento, comically failing to avoid the pasta he'd meant to forgo in favor of rations.

   • Naples's character
   • Personal reflection
2. August 30 1944
   Lewis races to Naples to fetch medicine for an ailing friend, discovering along the way a black-market pharmacy relabeling stolen drugs.

   • Black market
   • Disease & health
3. September 1 1944
   The newly-arrived Canadian soldiers prove restless, undisciplined, and utterly disconnected from the war and the local population around them.

   • Allied conduct
4. September 23 1944
   Lewis realizes with unease that locals now regard him as a possible *jettatore* (bearer of the evil eye), noting superstitious gestures made in his presence. He then reflects that a year after liberation, still hungry and diseased amid lawless ruins with only the distant promise of corrupt democracy ahead, Neapolitans may reasonably look back on the Mussolini years as a lost paradise by comparison.

   • Superstition & religion
   • Personal reflection